This application is related to a contemporaneously filed U.S. patent application entitled xe2x80x9cELECTRICAL CONNECTOR HAVING IMPROVED RETENTION STRUCTURExe2x80x9d, which is invented by the same inventor and assigned to the same assignee as this application.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and particularly to an electrical connector mountable to a substrate such as a printed circuit board.
2. Description of Related Art
In personal computers, electrical connectors are often mounted to printed circuit boards for electrically connecting the printed circuit boards with other devices. The electrical connectors usually include some locking or retention structures to hold the electrical connectors to the printed circuit boards and exterior metallic or conductive shells connecting with ground traces on the printed circuit boards to be protected from EMI (Electro-Magnetic Interference).
In order to simplify the assembly of the electrical connectors to the printed circuit boards, the metallic shells often connect with the ground traces on the printed circuit boards by the retention structures. A number of methods for achieving a reliable electrical connection between the metallic shells and the retention structures are known in the art. A first conventional method consists of stamping and forming a metallic shell and a retention structure into a single unit. However, the first conventional method suffers from a disadvantage that manufacturing of the metallic shell and the retention structure as a single piece is complicated and costly, consequently a special treatment for an insulative housing of the electrical connector is needed.
In a second conventional method described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,344,342 and 5,709,556, a retention structure is joined to a metallic shell by bolts and nuts, thereby providing an electrical connection between the retention structure and the metallic shell. The result is assembly of the electrical connector requires the use of the bolts, which causes lower performance efficiencies of the assembly. In addition, the configuration of the retention structure is complicated.
Hence, an electrical connector having improved metallic shell and retention structure is desired.
An object of the present invention is to provide an electrical connector having new metallic shell and retention structure which connect with each other simply and reliably.
To achieve the above object, an electrical connector in accordance with the present invention comprises an insulative housing defining a plurality of passageways, a plurality of electrical terminals received in the passageways of the insulative housing, a metallic shell assembled to the insulative housing, and a retention structure. The insulative housing comprises a pair of support portions. The metallic shell comprises a pair of contact plates deposited on the two support portions of the insulative housing. The retention structure is stamped and formed from sheet metal and mounted to the support portions of the insulative housing. The retention structure abuts against the contact plates of the metallic shell to electrically connect therebetween
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.